Unable to defend her possessions, Maria of Enghien sold the lordship of Argos and Nauplia to the Republic of Venice.

Maria of Enghien, also known as Marie of Enghien or d'Enghien, was the Lady of Argos and Nauplia in Frankish Greece from 1376 or 1377 to 1388. Because she was a minor when she inherited the lordship from her father, Guy of Enghien, his brother, Louis of Enghien, was appointed to be her guardian. Louis gave Maria in marriage to a Venetian patrician, Pietro Cornaro, in 1377. Maria moved to Venice, but she was involved in the administration of her lordship. After her husband died, she sold the lordship to the Republic of Venice for a regular income in 1388.

During the late Middle Ages, the two cities of Argos and Nauplia formed a lordship within the Frankish-ruled Morea in southern Greece.

The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 by Paolo Lucio Anafesto, over the course of its 1,100 years of history it established itself as one of the major European commercial and naval powers. Initially extended in the Dogado area, during its history it annexed a large part of Northeast Italy, Istria, Dalmatia, the coasts of present-day Montenegro and Albania as well as numerous islands in the Adriatic and eastern Ionian seas. At the height of its expansion, between the 13th and 16th centuries, it also governed Crete, Cyprus, the Peloponnese, a number of Greek islands, as well as several cities and ports in the eastern Mediterranean.